Since being paired up on a group project by their songwriting professor at SUNY Purchase in 2013, Jackson Foote and Emma Lov Block have been virtually inseparable. Not as a romantic couple, as many have wrongly assumed – but as a musical duo, equal partners in their now five-year old pop music project, Loote.
The summer following that life-changing school project, both Foote and Block moved into the city from Westchester and decided it was time they dedicate their efforts toward this musical endeavor full-time. In doing, the two dug in on career journeys as both songwriters and performers in their own right, and were both talented and fortunate to secure and finalize a publishing deal by the beginning of the fall that same year, a fast rise.
After two years of working on their own project and writing for many others, Loote released their own debut EP, single. in June of 2018 – an ode to relationships, especially those failed and passed, painted through the lens of two close partners that share both similar relationship experiences and artistic chemistry. “That’s what both of us have gone through over the past year,” Foote said of the EP’s love-and-loss theme. “Our working relationship has outlasted each of our personal relationships. We’ve watched each other go through breakups and return to the single life, and not know what we’re doing. You realize how shocking it is at first, so that theme resonated with both of us. When our two personalities come together that’s the thing we naturally connect on the most.”

The EP has clearly struck a cord with the listening public, as its songs have gone on to collect over 90 million streams, including their first major streaming single “High Without Your Love,” (2017) which now boasts over 40M streams, as well as 2018’s “Your Side of the Bed” a 30M stream, Top-40 radio single that’s led them across the country on both a tour with K-Pop star Eric Nam and a radio promo tour as well.
Foote and Block’s biggest claim to fame, though, isn’t even a single they wrote for themselves: alongside Ari Leff (more commonly known as rising pop artist Lauv) the duo co-wrote one of 2017’s biggest hit songs, Cheat Codes’ and Demi Lovato’s single “No Promises,” which has gone platinum nine times around the globe with over 415M Spotify streams. The two have established an impressive early repertoire within the pop realm to begin their musical careers, and show no signs of letting off of the gas.

Loote performs & explains when they first heard “No Promises” on radio:

“It’s crazy that we are where we are, but there’s so much more we want to do and accomplish,” said Foote of the journey Loote’s taken so far. “I’m so focused on the future, though, that I probably don’t appreciate where we are compared to where we started as much as I should.”
Noting back to a fifth grade yearbook Block’s father found in her childhood home, this path has been the plan all along, in Emma’s eyes. “I was the kid that said ‘All I want to do is music’…I wanted to act, I wanted to do music, to be a rock star. What kind of eight-year-old says that nonchalantly in an essay?”
As for where Block and Foote have their sights set for the project, Loote is shooting for the stars. “First for me, the vision is stadium pop superstars,” says Foote as Block nods her head in conceptual agreement. “I’ve been picturing that for a long long time, and that’s still what we’re aiming for and what we plan to achieve.”
Watch Early Bird’s interview with Loote at Island Records’ studios in the video above to hear more about their creative process as a duo, and to catch exclusive footage from their recording session for “Back Together.”
Special thanks to Island Records for collaborating on the video interview edit.